Ethnographic audio-visual research data recorded in a busy dementia care environment were initially considered to be ‘contaminated’ by unwanted background noise. This included a variety of elements: ambient sound, mechanical noise, non-narrative vocalisation and narrative fragments from parallel conversation. Using the methodological lens of conversation analysis, we present an exploration of the striking temporal and sequential resonances between the narrative of one man with dementia and a group of care staff holding a separate conversation some distance away. We suggest that in this and similar settings, where random and intrusive background sounds and conversation form a ubiquitous backdrop, the presence of such ‘noise’ can have a detectable influence on the content and direction of situated narratives. We argue that rather than attempting to filter out these apparently intrusive sounds from micro-interactional data, interference elements can usefully be incorporated into the analysis of interactions.

Within the dominant biomedical discourse, late-life dementia is regarded as a pathological condition characterised by short-term memory loss, word finding difficulties and ‘problem behaviours’ such as ‘wandering and ‘repetitive questioning’. As its title suggests, one of the main purposes of this chapter is to shift the focus from what people with late-life dementia forget to what they remember, particularly as this relates to places they have known much earlier in life. A central part of my argument is that dementia, often somewhat crudely represented as wholesale memory loss, might better be regarded as a form of spatio-temporal disruption; a disruption which intersects with the theoretical territory of psychogeography.

Within care organizations, “people with dementia” are often labeled as a homogenous group with little differentiating them from each other. This can mark them out as separate from and less capable than those without dementia. When individuals with dementia are described, understood, and related to in terms of their diagnosis, individuality may get lost. In this article, we seek to unsettle the socially constructed boundary between “people with dementia” and people without dementia. This is explored in the context of fieldwork we undertook as part of a Participatory Video project where we worked alongside people with a dementia diagnosis to co-create short films about their interests and concerns. In the process of this work, we found that alternative unities emerged between ourselves and people with dementia, as the dementia label faded into the background and the person, with all his or her diverse interests and life experiences, came to the fore. We found ourselves building rapport and making connections with our research participants, a diverse group of individuals whose life experiences, outlooks, and experiences were simultaneously unique to them but also shared in many ways between themselves, and with us. As we spent time with participants in the communal lounge, in the adjoining day center, walking the hallways, out in the garden, or in individual apartments when invited, we found that people shared a wealth of information with us: about how they were feeling, things they liked, things they had done, instances of trauma, as well as some of their happiest times.

Fiction film is one of the most influential vehicles for the popularization of dementia. It is likely to have a particular influence on the way dementia is constructed by society at large, not least due to its consumption in the guise of entertainment. In this paper, we will argue that such popularization is rarely innocent or unproblematic. Representations of people with dementia in film tend to draw heavily on familiar tropes such as global memory loss, violence and aggression, extreme dependency on heroic carers, catastrophic prognosis, and early death. Audiences may therefore uncritically absorb discourses which reinforce negative stereotypes and perpetuate the biomedical orthodoxy that everything a person with dementia says or does is ‘a symptom of the disease.’

Digital storytelling using a standard software package such as Photostory 3 can work to impose a linear format on a slideshow of visual images. By contrast the forms of self-expression adopted by people who have a diagnosis of dementia can often be digressive, circuitous and rhizomatic, corresponding more closely to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘lines of flight’. Preparatory to completing digital stories with ten people with a diagnosis of dementia who were living in a long-term social care environment, we used both linear (visual narrative) and non-linear (collaging) storyboarding techniques. This presentation draws on examples of both, together with extracts from one completed digital life story, to highlight why we need to avoid linear form dictating digital storytelling practice.

The Division of Dementia Studies at the University of Bradford has a 3-stage strategy to involve service users with dementia in practitioner education. This year¿s conference will be a perfect opportunity for us to show how the involvement of people with dementia in our Dementia Studies courses has moved from rhetoric to reality over the past three years. We now have people with dementia involved in the management, delivery and assessment of our degree programmes. A participatory video outreach project carried out in a day centre for people with dementia in 2009 produced a variety of audio-visual material including voice recordings, photographs, and film which people with dementia were directly involved in making, and which are now used as learning resources for students. In a parallel project, former carers contributed to a DVD that was developed as part of a dedicated training programme for Bupa care staff. Students on the MSc Dementia Studies (Training in Dementia Care) pathway are now also beginning to include people with dementia in the training they provide in order to complete their award. A further project to pilot methods of involving service users in long-term care, including those with severe dementia is to begin in March 2011, and early findings from this will also be presented.
The presenters include an academic course lead, a MSc student, a researcher, a service user/campaigner, and current and former family carers. We will present using a variety of formats including small case studies, film, audio, photographs and service user narratives. We will also be open to questions and comments about the practical, ethical and educational challenges arising from this ongoing work.

Since 2001 the Trebus Project has been collecting first-person narrative biographies of people with dementia, the majority of whom were living in UK care homes. In 2012 David Clegg, the director of the Trebus Project, received funding from the Wellcome Trust's Arts Awards to carry out an interdisciplinary exploration of the narratives of three people with dementia who, by coincidence, had occupied the same care home room (Room 21) at different times. Analysis of the three narratives to date has discovered some uncanny echoes and resonances. The narrators make frequent reference to other rooms which are temporally or spatially connected with Room 21 in some way. There are worm-hole-like exits and entrances to past times and places, and intimations of other rooms within, behind, and underneath this present living space. At points, events in national and social history sheer dizzyingly away from the accounts of them we have inherited from official sources. Extracts from the narratives of Room 21's three inhabitants, Frances, Peter and Shirley, will be presented in a way that juxtaposes the experience of dementia and post-war postmodern consciousness: liminal, fragmentary, frequently surreal, and beyond the reach of universalising accounts of either the 'illness experience' or revisionist history. Plans to disseminate the findings of the project by means of film and dramatic reconstruction will be discussed.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the use of arts, humanities and media-based approaches to teaching students in medicine, health, and social care-related disciplines. Here, it is widely assumed that 'the arts' are an undifferentiated force for good which will humanise curricula dominated by medical and scientific perspectives. Such approaches tend, however, to be implemented in something of a theoretical vacuum with little consideration of critical perspectives derived from cultural studies.
'Cinemeducation' is a term recently coined for the use of mainstream films which touch on particular medical conditions or 'disorders' in the education of medical students (Alexander et al, eds 2005). What is overlooked by advocates of this approach is that such films often perpetuate stereotypical views of the nature and causes of physical and emotional ill-being, and collude in their medicalisation. Scriptwriters and directors may also give in to the temptation to sensationalise or misrepresent conditions because this makes for box office success. Finally, there are subtleties related to denotation and connotation in film which mean that little can straightforwardly be assumed about educational outcomes.
This presentation will draw on a study of both independent and mainstream films related to memory loss and cognitive impairment in the context of my own teaching in dementia studies, and will include clips from source material. Drawing on Ricoeur's concept of the hermeneutics of suspicion I seek to introduce a note of caution to the current 'arts and health' agenda.

Export search results

The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different
formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export.
The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.